


Home Isn't a Place

by HomuraBakura



Series: Arc V Angst Week 2018 [7]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Self-Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-14 06:14:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16034651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomuraBakura/pseuds/HomuraBakura
Summary: Reira has never known what home is.





	Home Isn't a Place

**Author's Note:**

> Arc V Angst Week, Day 7: Home

A roar vibrated the entire room, shaking it to its foundations.  Reira couldn’t keep their feet. They screamed as the wind exploded out from Yuya’s body, as the world began to warp and twist and pressure simultaneously crushed and stretched out their body. 

Arms latched around them, dragging them back down to earth.  Reiji tried to plant his feet, his scarf whipping around in a wild whirlwind.  Reira couldn’t hear if the wind was screaming — all they could hear was the loud roar coming from somewhere deep inside Yuya, and they couldn’t tell if it was coming out of his lips or if it was just the sound inside Yuya’s mind that was rattling against the inside of Reira’s now.

Reiji swore but Reira only heard the vibration of it and the echo of it in his mind, they couldn’t hear the actual words.  And then Reiji lost his feet, too.

Reira screamed as they both went tumbling into the air.  Reiji grabbed hold of them, pressing his body around Reira’s, so that when his back struck the far wall, Reira only felt the second hand impact.

And then the wind stopped.  A horrible, ringing silence surrounded them instead.  Reira’s brain was entirely silent — it was as though the scream of Yuya’s — Zarc’s — raging mind had temporarily deafened them now that it was gone.

Reiji laid crumpled against the base of the wall, still clutching Reira.  He coughed, and then Reira did too, tasting an awful mixture of ash and static on the base of their tongue.  What had happened? Where did...Yuya go?

Reiji coughed again.  Reira had to get up. Had to keep fighting.  Keep working towards the goal. That was...all that would keep them going.  They tried to push at Reiji to stand up, so that they could help Reiji stand up, but Reiji just clutched him a moment longer.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped.

Reira stopped trying to get out of Reiji’s grip.  Their heart leaped into their throat. What? What was Reiji saying right now?”

“Niisan?” they whispered. 

They felt tears briefly scatter against their face when they tried to look up at Reiji.

“I’m so sorry,” Reiji coughed again.  “Reira. I never should have brought you here.”

“Niisan,” Reira said, more urgently.  “Niisan, it’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Reiji said.  His voice was so hoarse and distant.  He looked dizzy, as though the impact might have disoriented him.  “You’re only a child. I brought you all the way here. I don’t know what’s going to happen now, Reira.  I’m sorry. I should have...you deserved a home, not another war.”

Reira shook.  Tears blurred their eyes.  No, no, no! Why did they feel things now?  They remembered, now, why they had trained themselves to forget how to feel.  It hurt too much. It paralyzed them. They couldn’t stop now. They couldn’t...  Reiji couldn’t...if he broke down like this, Reira didn’t know what to do!”

The sky outside roared, and Reiji’s head snapped up, all tears gone in the shock and horror of what he must imagine was out there.

Reira heard it again, then, like the distant thrumming of drums.  They shuddered, bit back the last of their tears. Whatever was outside — well, it could only be one thing, Reira thought, as the thread of horrible, wracking rage and a mad glee washed over him from some unknown direction.

Zarc was awake.

* * *

“Use me,” Reira whispered into the light.  “Use me as your vessel, Ray. I can get you there.”

The girl made of light startled, staring up at them.  It was hard to tell her expression when she was made of pure light, but Reira could sense the unease wafting off of her.  They felt the panic, just barely contained beneath their ribs. If they stopped moving, it would take over. If they stopped moving now, they’d remember the way Reiji’s voice had cracked when he’d apologized for something he didn’t need to apologize for.  If they stopped, they’d only be able to hear the distant screaming anger and madness of Zarc.

Ray finally nodded.  She reached a hand up to Reira, and touched their hand.  The light fled inside them, and they gasped — it felt like soda bubbles across their skin.

Ray settled uneasily in Reira’s heart, awkwardly, as though she weren’t sure where to sit. 

_ Is this okay? _

Reira nodded.  They could handle this.  Hold her here for at least long enough to duel.  They could feel the raw, naked energy coursing through them, the crackle and pulse of nature’s lifeblood that Ray had hidden within her counterparts for the past fourteen years.  It was like pure adrenaline. Yes, yes, with this, they could keep moving. They could manage to keep running, and not think about the panic and the tears lodged in their chest.

They flinched, though, when Ray nudged against something locked away at the back of their mind.  Ray flinched back from it immediately, but it was too late. She’d seen it. Horror pulsed through her, and through them.

“Don’t look at that,” Reira gasped.  “Please don’t.”

_ Oh my god.  No, I can’t make you do this.  You’ve been through one war already, I can’t — I can’t send you up against him, I can’t do it —  _

The memories threatened to swallow them up.  They barely even remembered it — just flashes, flashes of panic and distant explosions and the acrid scent of fallen bombs and burnt bodies.  They screamed, covering their eyes and doubling over themselves.

“Y-You have to, please,” Reira said, as Ray tried in vain to disentangle herself from them.  “This is the last chance!”

_ Reira, no, please, you don’t understand, you don’t know what this is going to ask from you, I can’t do this to you, you’re just a  _ child — 

They didn’t even remember what the world had been like before it.  The word “war” had been a part of their vocabulary long before the word “home” had been.  Did they have a family, before the war? Did they have a house, or pets, or a yard? The teddy bear was all they had left from the time before war, and it held no significance, none that they could remember.

Outside, the world was falling apart.  Anger and rage and madness and horror all ran rampant through the air, enough to choke on it.  Things exploded, debris rained from the sky, people screamed.

Reiji said he wished he’d given Reira a home.

But, Reira thought, mind dulled by the memories of panic and horror, war was the only home they’d ever known.

Ray sobbed in their head.

_ This isn’t fair _ .

Reira clutched themselves, breathing in and out.  In and out.

“Please,” they said, forcing themselves empty again.  “We’re the last chance.”

* * *

_ Reira, this is it.  This is your shot. Breathe, Reira.  You can do it. _

Reira nodded.  They’d waited for this exact moment.  They raised a hand over their head, and called upon the power of the world one last time.

Ray hadn’t lied.  They hadn’t been prepared for what the En Cards would demand of them.  As the energy poured through their tiny body, they almost screamed. It laid them completely bare — as the tidal wave of nature’s force poured through them, everything came undone.  Every lock, every dusty corner of their mind, every forced bit of emptiness, it all came to the light, washed clean and free.

The war, and what they didn’t remember that came before it.

The lab, the frowning Himika who nodded to put the electrodes against their temples and begin the test again.

Reiji, and his soft voice telling Reira that they didn’t have to call him ‘sir’.

The pain and panic of the Syncho dimension, when their strength almost failed.

Yuya, holding them tightly and telling them that it was all going to be all right now.

The world falling apart.

Reiji, holding them close and whispering that he shouldn’t have brought Reira to another war.

Reira closed their eyes.  Before them, they could hear Zarc screaming.  For the first time, beneath the anger and the madness, they could sense the true core: the fear, and the loneliness.  The unbelonging.

_ It’s going to be okay, Reira. _

Ray sounded like she was going to cry.  They knew as well as she did what came next.  Reira’s soul wouldn’t be able to hold the power of the world.  When they split Zarc, their own soul would split too. And Zarc...and Reira...the world would all reset, once again.

Where would they go, Reira wondered.  What would happen to them in another life?

They managed to open their eyes.  They looked down, one last time at the world that was starting to fade away.  

They saw, one last time, Reiji’s wide, horrified eyes.  They tried to smile.

And then, they made one last decision.

Ray startled when Reira changed the course of the energy in their soul.

_ Reira? _

“I can see what you did last time,” Reira gasped.  “I know what to do instead.”

The wind screamed in their face, throwing their hair to the wind, making them feel like they were being shoved into the earth.  They gasped.

“Thank you, Ray-san!” they gasped.  “I hope — I’ll see you on the other side!”

They twisted the energy within them, rooting it deep, pulling it in faster.  More, more, more, they needed just a little more energy to make this world! They heard Zarc scream — panicked, this time, scared and desperate and lost.  

Reira reached forward.

“It’s okay,” they gasped.  “It’s okay, Zarc-san.”

They smiled, and the energy snapped the cord.  Ray gasped as Reira flung her out of them. Then Zarc’s soul ripped free from the body in front of them.

Reira accepted it, in all its sharp edges, all its pain, all its screaming panic.  They folded it inside their heart, and closed their eyes, letting the world begin to slot back into place around them.  They saw Reiji, and Yuya, and everyone they’d met smiling at them behind their eyelids as everything began to eat away.

_ Niisan, home isn’t a place.  It’s people _ , they thought.   _ You already did give me a home. _

Reira’s senses blacked out one at a time, as Zarc screamed and pounded against the walls of Reira’s soul.

“It’s going to be okay, Zarc,” Reira said, tears dripping between their eyelashes. “Let’s go home.”

* * *

Reira was finally asleep.  Reiji slowly brought the rocking cradle to a pause, letting it slow down until it was still again.  He hovered over the crib for a moment, absently poking at the mobile.

Reira’s face was so small.  And yet, it was still unmistakably Reira.  Reiji had never known Reira when they were an infant, but the face was still the same, even with the roundness of infancy.

He could only watch the small, sleeping face.  He wasn’t ready to step back behind him to where the bed was.

He felt like he should feel like crying, perhaps.  Reira had made a sacrifice for them. Zarc’s anger was finally soothed.  But Reira...remained. Like this.

_ I should have done right by you _ , he thought.   _ I should have never put you to these lengths. _

Reira stirred in their sleep, tiny hands opening and closing.  Reiji reached in towards them, briefly brushed at their short hair.  They paused when Reira automatically wrapped their tiny fingers around just one of his.

Reiji didn’t move.  He just waited, in the dark, and the quiet, and listening to Reira’s breaths.

“I promise you,” he whispered.  “You’ll never live another war again.  You’ll never know that pain this time. I...”

He put one hand to his mouth, closing his eyes against the tears.  Then he shook his head, just smiling through the tears in his eyes.  That wasn’t what Reira wanted, he was sure. All Reira wanted...was one thing.  And this time, in this world, in this life...Reiji was determined that Reira would get it.

So he leaned down into the crib, and gently kissed Reira’s forehead.  Then he smiled, and whispered one last thing.

“Welcome home, Reira.”


End file.
